Teachers

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full-length collections Her Whole Bright Life (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize, Write Bloody, 2023), Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat, 2021) and Beautiful & Full of Monsters (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020). She is a Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellow (2022) and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Read her publications on her blog: www.wordperv.com. Follow her on twitter: @wordperv, and IG: @wordperv79. 

Kate Lebo’s writing is anthologized in Best American Essays 2015 and her first collection of nonfiction, The Book of Difficult Fruit, was published by FSG in Spring 2021. She’s the author of Pie School and co-editor (with Samuel Ligon) of Pie & Whiskey.

Kimberly Lee, JD is a versatile writer, workshop facilitator, editor, and creativity coach with a passion for nurturing the imaginative spirit and helping others reveal their own inner wisdom. She left the practice of law some years ago to focus on motherhood, community work, and creative pursuits. A graduate of Stanford University and UC Davis School of Law, she is an Amherst Writers & Artists facilitator and serves on its board of directors. She is also trained and certified by The Center for Journal Therapy, The Center for Intentional Creativity, The Path Meditation, and SoulCollage®. She has led workshops at numerous retreats, conferences, and corporate venues. A former editor and regular contributor at Literary Mama, Kimberly has also served on the staffs of Carve and F(r)iction magazines. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications and anthologies including Minerva Rising, LA Parent, Words and Whispers, Toyon, The Ekphrastic Review, Writers Read, I Am Woman: Expressions of Black Womanhood in America, the Better Sleep app, and elsewhere. Her debut novel will be published in 2025. Kimberly trusts in the magic and mystery of miracles and synchronicity, and believes that everyone is creative and has unique gifts to share. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Margot Leitman is an award-winning storyteller, best-selling author, speaker and teacher. A former story scout for "This American Life," she is considered a leading expert in the growing field of storytelling. Leitman has written two books on the subject: the best-selling, Long Story Short: The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need and her latest What’s Your Story? A Workbook For the Storyteller in All of Us both from Sasquatch Books. Her comedic memoir, Gawky: Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase is available from Seal Press/Perseus Books

Eric LeMay has taught writing at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago. He is currently on the faculty of the writing program at Ohio University, his alma mater. He is also a host on the New Books Network. He is the author of five books, most recently Remember Me. His poetry and prose have appeared in The Paris Review, DIAGRAM, Salon, Poetry Daily, the Best Food Writing series, and other venues. He lives in Athens, Ohio, with fellow writer, Kristin LeMay, and their son.

Noah Lemelson is a speculative fiction writer based in Los Angeles. His short stories have appeared in Planet Scumm, Allegory, and Interzone among others. His debut dieselpunk novel, The Sightless City, was released in 2021. Find more at Noahlemelson.com

Robert Lennon is the author of Familiar, Broken River, Subdivision, and other novels, and the story collections Pieces for the Left Hand, See You in Paradise, and Let Me Think. He teaches creative writing at Cornell University.

Dana Levin’s fifth book is Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon Press, 2022), a Lannan Literary Selection. Recent books include Banana Palace (2016) and Sky Burial (2011), which The New Yorker called “utterly her own and utterly riveting.” She is a grateful recipient of honors, including those from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, and the Library of Congress, as well as from the Rona Jaffe, Whiting, and Guggenheim Foundations. Levin teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Maryville University in St. Louis.

Lisa Levy is a writer, editor, essayist, and critic. Her work has appeared in many publications, including the New Republic, the LARB, the Believer, the Rumpus, TLS, the CBC, and Lit Hub, where she is a contributing editor. She is also a columnist and contributing editor to Crime Reads, which she helped found. She is working on a collection of linked essays called The Impatient, about the construction of the case, the conditions of chronic illness, life narrative, failure, modernity, and American literature.

Jaimie Li is a contributing writer at Poetry Northwest and Darling Magazine and the Editor-in-chief of the Spring 2020 issue of The Pitkin Review. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College in 2022 and is the recipient of the 2019 Goddard/PEN North American Centers Scholarship for her work in fiction and memoir. In 2011, she received her BA in Law at Balliol College, Oxford University. She grew up in Los Angeles County and currently lives on the Cedar River in Maple Valley, WA. To learn more about Jaimie go to www.jaimiezongli.com.

Gary Copeland Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman’s Medicine Show, from Lost Horse Press (2017); a chapbook, The Hog Killing, from Blue Horse Press (2018); and High Water Everywhere (Willow Books, second edition 2022). Earlier poetry collections include Alpha Zulu (Ausable Press, 2008), The Reprehensibles (Fractal Edge Press, 2004), and The Subsequent Blues (Four Way Books, 2004). Originally from Sandy Cross, North Carolina, Gary Copeland Lilley was a longtime resident of Washington, D.C., where he was a founding member of the Black Rooster Collective. He received the D.C. Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry in 1996 and again in 2000, and he earned a MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College in 2002. He now lives, writes, teaches, curates faculty for the Port Townsend Writers Conference, and plays blues guitar in the Pacific Northwest. He is published in numerous anthologies and journals, and is a Cave Canem Fellow.

http://www.losthorsepress.org/catalog/the-bushmans-medicine-show/

Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her work has been supported most recently by a Guggenheim Fellowship. She grew up in Sonoma, California and now lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she writes, teaches remotely, and hosts the critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Her new book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, is out now from Milkweed Editions. She is the 24th Poet Laureate of The United States.